It’s a simple statement but in the past decade it’s not always been an easy life for the 43-year old former men’s magazine favourite – with bouts of depression, losing her hair and being forcibly admitted to a psychiatric hospital after a nervous breakdown.

But right now she’s feeling great. Next year she will star in a touring play, 69 Shades of Black and is an in-demand voice-over artist for the likes of Lidl.

She said: “A lot of things have been sent to try me but you come out the other end.

“I have my daughter, I’ve got a lot of good friends around me and I’ve got a lot of good work coming up.

“I’m just a bit balder and a bit older.”

Yes, the hair, or lack of it.

Back in 1999 FHM projected a 60ft image of her bare bum onto the Houses of Parliament to promote their poll of the world’s 100 sexiest women.

She was Britain’s sexiest ladette – cute, pert and with lovely long hair.

But after her marriage to Dan Hipgrave ended, the stress triggered alopecia in 2005. She refused to wear a wig and is now most famous for being bald.

Often when she’s out, people are cruel.

She said: “I get a few people being rude about what I look like.

“Usually drunk people or someone shouting ‘baldy’ because they think it’s really funny and couldn’t come up with anything wittier.

“I have to say (she says it sarcastically), ‘That’s amazing . I’d never have come up with that one.’

“But most people are great. Children point a lot. This little girl said to me the other day, ‘It’s all gone’ then asked ‘Lady?’ and I had to say, ‘Yes I’m definitely a lady’.

She’s laughing. And this lady would like a fella.

She’s been on the market for two and a half years and giggled: “I’m always looking for a bloke.

“What kind of guy do I go for? Someone who is breathing. That’s about it. Let’s narrow it down to that.

Clearly her self-depreciation is a way of dealing with her changed appearance.

She was once voted the eighth sexiest woman in the world by FHM and of course in 1999, when she was 28, the magazine projected her naked form on to one of the towers of the Palace of Westminster.

But now she is best known for the alopecia and being bald. Her looks are still there though. You only have to look at our picture of her in character as Christina Black in the new play, complete with black wig, to see.

In 2010 three quarters of her hair grew back only for it to fall out again.

Stress is the contributing factor and, given she’s upbeat at the moment, it’s no surprise that her hair is growing back.

But she laughed: “I’m looking like my dad.

“It’s growing at the sides and it’s growing back in white.

“So I’m leaving it and seeing what happens, and if it isn’t very nice, I’ll shave it off.”

Gail with her daughter Honey (Image: Getty Images)

I wonder how her daughter Honey, 11, with ex-hubby Dan, thinks of her mum back in the 90s when she smouldered for the magazines in skimpy clothes and of course that FHM projection.

Gail said: “She thinks it’s quite embarrassing. She says, ‘Mum what were you doing?’ and I say, ‘Mummy was really hot and had to take her clothes off’.

The test of course for anyone with a career in the spotlight is whether they’d wanted their children to go through it.

Gail started off well, first on children’s show Fully Booked, then Live & Kicking and Top of the Pops.

And if Honey wanted to follow her?

“Whatever she wants to do as long as she’s happy, I don’t really care.”

Gail has lived in London for 22 years but admits she’d move back to Scotland if it didn’t disrupt her daughter’s life. But she finds going home hard after the death of her mum, aged 60, in 2009.

Gail said: “I don’t go back as often as I’d like because I don’t have my mum any more so it’s quite difficult to be at home.

“And it’s difficult with Honey, trying to fit in holidays around work.

“But I always try to make the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

“I totally miss Scotland.

“I’d move back in a second but I can’t because I’ve got so much work here and my ex-husband is down here so, for Honey, we all have to be near each other.”

As for her relationship with Dan, it seems it has worked out well.

She said: “We get on brilliantly.

“He is a great, hands-on dad.”

Next year when she goes on tour with 69 Shades of Black, Dan will no doubt be stepping in but Gail hasn’t worked it out yet.

She said: “We’ll work it out nearer the time.

“We aren’t touring all the time so we’ll have days off and she can come on the tour.”

It’s a big one. A 40 town and cities major UK tour that starts in Scotland, opening for two nights in Kilmarnock on April 10, 2015, before dates in Motherwell, Arbroath, Glenrothes, Dunfermline, Perth, Inverness, Edinburgh, Falkirk , Greenock and Dumfries.

She plays company director Christina Black, who attempts to seduce new boy William with an indecent proposal. It’s a full-on comedy.

Of course, despite the huge demands of such a big tour, Gail is pushing it still and hoping she might do a stand-up show at the Edinburgh Fringe next year too.

She said: “I can do everything . I can honestly.”

She can back it up too. As well as presenting and modelling, she acted in TV sitcom Baddiel’s Syndrome and made her professional stage debut in 2009 in The Vagina Monologues at the Edinburgh Playhouse and that year tried doing stand-up comedy.

She argued: “I always do things I really fancy doing. You shouldn’t pigeon hole yourself into one specific thing.

“If something takes your fancy you should do it.”

Next year, 69 Shades of Black will be her first national theatre tour. She will head up a cast of four.

She said: “It’s a massive tour but it’s really exciting.

“I’m getting to that stage in my life that I want to do something different.

“I was really pleased when I was approached to do 69 Shades of Black and they thought I’d be good enough to do it.

“I’ve been sent lots of scripts in the past but two of the writers Chris Taylor and Fraser Boyle are Scottish and anything Scottish goes straight to the top of my pile because I’m a very loyal Scottish girl.”

That seems an obvious moment to ask about the referendum. It’s the only time she refuses to comment.

She said: “It’s best not to talk about politics. I’d rather not say and anyway I can’t vote.”

She’d like to come to Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games later this month but has to think of Honey and remember “everything is usually very last minute”.

Gail is being kept busy.

She and the cast and writers of 69 Shades of Black are getting to know each other, although rehearsals won’t start until next year.

She’s voiced a couple of pilots for cartoons that she can’t talk about and has voice-over work for Lidl.